This would explain why these spectacular game birds are so much more abundant in North Dakota than they are on this side of the border.

Here, their numbers are few and restricted to the very southernmost part of the province. Multiple attempts to introduce them elsewhere in Saskatchewan, including around Saskatoon, all have failed, even though they would seem to have everything they need. Pheasants are native to Siberia and Outer Mongolia, for heaven’s sake. In North Dakota, where the climate and the farms are pretty much the same as around here, pheasants thrive. What have they got there they don’t have here?

No trees is what I noticed the other week on my way to the little town of Regent, N.D., pheasant hunting capital of the world. You can see the difference as soon as you cross the border. In Saskatchewan, fields typically are sheltered by trees and hedgerows planted since the great drought of the 1930s to reduce soil erosion. The PFRA nursery at Indian Head, before it closed in 2013, distributed more than 600 million trees to Canadian prairie farmers. The resulting shelter belts are a characteristic feature of Saskatchewan’s farmland.

North Dakota had no PFRA. The fields down there just go on and on, often without a tree in sight except in farmyards and along the occasional coulee or creek. Pheasants seem to appreciate the wide, open spaces.

Something else that’s different is farmland property rights. North Dakota farmers charge hunters to hunt on their posted land. It is a lucrative business for those whose property is teeming with pheasants. Hunters from across North America pay handsomely to get at them. Hunters are forbidden by law from even setting foot on any property except where they have paid the landowner. Property rights extend to the center of the road. Step across and you invite an unpleasant confrontation.

The crops in North Dakota are familiar, but in different measures. There are all the usual grains but no canola, peas or lentils. Instead, there are vast fields of sunflowers and corn, most of it taller than me. This is where pheasants hide out, often in large numbers. By yourself, however, you could spend all day tramping up and down the claustrophobia-inducing rows and never see one. The pheasants see you first and simply avoid you. Or sometimes they just hunker down and hide where they are, as if under tiny cloaks of invisibility. Even a hawk can’t see them then.

To scare up the pheasants requires a team effort. We had 20 hunters and six or eight dogs in our group and they were barely enough. The usual procedure is for one group of hunters and dogs to form a line across the width of the field, a half-mile in some cases, and then push toward another line blocking the far end. As the lines come together, pheasants fly up by the dozen. It might sound dangerous to have long lines of hunters facing off and firing shotguns at targets between, but really, it isn’t. You only shoot high, never low.

Another rule is no hens allowed. Only roosters can be hunted, which is more easily said than done. The seemingly glaring differences between a drab pheasant hen and a gaudy rooster are not as apparent when they are flying around like rockets and silhouetted against the sky. To help with identification, hunters call out “Hen!” or “Rooster!” as birds explode from cover. Later, when you clean and dress them, you have to leave attached to the carcass one scaly, clawed foot so wildlife authorities can check for the fighting spur that distinguishes the male. Too bad if the spurs inevitably cut through the freezer bags.

Saskatoon, for me, would be perfect if pheasants lived around here. If it really is the shelter belts keeping them away, they might want to reconsider. Zero-tillage farming practices supposedly have made shelter belts redundant. Farmers across Saskatchewan now are clearing them, replacing the long rows of poplar and caragana thicket with canola and lentils.

If they could just work sunflowers into their crop rotations, the pheasants will come.

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